This Sports Illustrated article is one of the better articles I’ve read on the Federer-Nadal rivalry.

I don’t agree with everything in it—for one thing, portray Federer as being less willing to fight than I think is the case—but it covers the bases pretty well, and it’s hard to argue with this key section:

From mid-2006 through ’07 Federer took five of his seven matches with Nadal, including both Wimbledon finals, and he seemed to have mastered his young rival at last. But Nadal took a major step by pushing Federer to five sets in the ’07 Wimbledon final. As the challenger he had the psychological advantage of chasing, and unlike Federer he was determined to keep adding weapons. To beat Federer on grass and hard courts, Toni and Rafa were methodically upgrading Rafa’s game, making it less reliant on defense and more geared to dictating play and conserving energy.
—S. L. Price, “How Nadal humbled Federer”, Sports Illustrated, 14 May 2009

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 22:38 15 May 2009 and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

2 Responses to “S. L. Price on Federer and Nadal”

1. monsun Says:
   17 May 2009 at 11:13

   Let me guess. Today’s post will be on Federer’s victory over Nadal. Do I deserve chocolate now? ;)

2. Tadhg Says:
   17 May 2009 at 11:16

   Hey, no fair! (Yes, that is what I’m planning to write about today… although I unfortunately didn’t get to watch the match. As for chocolate, who could argue that you don’t deserve it?)

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